Review – All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill

“You have to kill him.” Imprisoned in the heart of a secret military base, Em has nothing except the voice of the boy in the cell next door and the list of instructions she finds taped inside the drain.

Only Em can complete the final instruction. She’s tried everything to prevent the creation of a time machine that will tear the world apart. She holds the proof: a list she has never seen before, written in her own hand. Each failed attempt in the past has led her to the same terrible present—imprisoned and tortured by a sadistic man called the doctor while war rages outside.

Marina has loved her best friend James since the day he moved next door when they were children. A gorgeous, introverted science prodigy from one of America’s most famous families, James finally seems to be seeing Marina in a new way, too. But on one disastrous night, James’s life crumbles apart, and with it, Marina’s hopes for their future. Now someone is trying to kill him. Marina will protect James, no matter what. Even if it means opening her eyes to a truth so terrible that she may not survive it. At least not as the girl she once was.

All Our Yesterdays is a wrenching, brilliantly plotted story of fierce love, unthinkable sacrifice, and the infinite implications of our every choice.

Review

I had heard that All Our Yesterdays was good, but after reading the description, I was not excited. Time travel? I don’t know. It just didn’t sound appealing. But it was showing up on several best books of the year lists, so I decided to give it a shot, and I’m so glad I did.

When we first meet Em, she’s sitting in a cell, staring at a drain in her floor. At first, I was struck a little with thoughts of Shatter Me, but it became clear pretty quickly that Em was nothing like Juliette. Very quickly, Em finds the note that says “You have to kill him.”, and I was pretty much hooked. You see, we don’t find out right away who the “he” is, so it immediately adds several layers of mystery.

I was a little confused at first with the back and forth between Em and Marina, but I caught on pretty quickly. It’s still kind of strange how the stories are so different yet parallel each others.

It’s really hard to explain what it is that I liked about this book. I guess most of it would just be the mystery. There are several mysteries entangled in each other, and I was dying to unravel each and every one of them, to see if Em could succeed in her mission and how. I wanted to know the who and the why. I needed the answers and could not stop reading!

Also, the time travel aspect was handled extremely well. There was even an explanation around the paradox of travelling back in time to change the future, and it actually made sense.

There was a lot of action and tension in All Our Yesterdays, and I loved it. The final confrontation had me feverishly flipping pages, not sure what was going to happen but needing to know. It left me feeling all sorts of emotions, and I thought it was great.

Overall, I thought that All Our Yesterdays was a really great book with an summary that just did not do it any justice, and I would highly recommend it!